Fudge Frosting

Yield: 2 ½ cups, enough to cover a 3-layer 8-inch cake
Recipe: 13/200
“Back to Baking”, pp. 142

    As mentioned in my previous post, I volunteered to make a cake and cookies for a colleague’s birthday. However, I could not for the life of me decide on which cake to make. The cake was to be made for the following day, so it had to be a recipe for which I had all the ingredients and ideally contained no nuts (due to the allergies of a colleague). I then stumbled across a beautiful-looking rich vanilla cake with a fudge frosting. First up: the fudge frosting! It was easy to make, tasted great and looked even better on the cake! Once again, this will enter my recipe book as a classic.

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped
  • ⅓ cup cocoa powder, sifted
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups icing sugar, sifted
  • ⅔ cup sour cream *

Directions:

  1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a metal or glass bowl placed over a pot of simmering water, stirring gently until melted. Once completely melted, remove the bowl from the heat and let cool the mixture to room temperature. Alternatively, the chocolate and butter can be melted in the microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring in between.
  2. Using a hand or stand mixer, add the cocoa, vanilla extract and 1 cup of the icing sugar. Beat at low speed to incorporate the ingredients well, then increase the speed and beat until smooth.
    • * If you do not have sour cream at hand like was my case, you can replace it with 150 ml buttermilk. If no buttermilk is available to you, you can add ½ tablespoon of white vinegar to150 ml milk and let sit for 10 minutes as an alternative).Beat in the sour cream and the remaining icing sugar (1 cup) until smooth. If the frosting is too liquid, add 1-2 tablespoon(s) of icing sugar and stir to combine.

Valerie